"Britannicus was handed a harmless drink. The taster
had tasted it; but Britannicus found it too hot and refused it. Then cold water
containing the poison was added. Speechless, his whole body convulsed, he instantly
ceased to breathe. His companions were horrified. Some, uncomprehending, fled.
Others understanding better, remained rooted in their places, staring at Nero.
He still lay back unconcernedly - and he remarked that this often happened to
epileptics [and soon Britannicus'] consciousness would return...After a short
silence the banquet continued.

"Britannicus was cremated the night he died. Indeed,
preparations for his inexpensive funeral had already been made. As his remains
were placed in the imperial mausoleum, there was a violent storm. It was widely
believed that the gods were showing their fury at the boy's murder - though
even his fellow-men generally condoned it, arguing that brothers were traditional
enemies and that the empire was indivisible."

In what follows, the basic facts are culled
from accounts of the inquest proceedings  the Magistrates reports
themselves [Mag] and the account reported in the Ceylon Daily News [CDN].
Where they differ, it will be indicated. The CDN reports are of value
because the reporter has been good at recording the English nuances. Where other
sources are used, they will be indicated. To begin with, a special acknowledgement
must be made. It was the Civil Rights Movement of Sri Lanka and the Home for
Human Rights, which first set out to bring justice to the victims and their
families and to put the record straight. At the request of the Home for Human
Rights, the Civil Rights Movement in 1985 assisted families of the victims to
file 30 civil actions in court. To this end Suriya Wickremasinghe, secretary
to the CRM, had carefully sifted the evidence and interviewed outside this country
all but one or two of the 19 survivors. She is currently working on a book on
the affair. She has kindly made available to us her analysis of the inquest
proceedings and certain other materials. Where we have availed ourselves of
her notes and analysis, it will be acknowledged by the initials SW.[Top]

The Tamil prisoners
detained under the PTA were housed in the ground floor of the Chapel Section
of Welikade Prison. Being in the shape of a cross, it had four wings A,B,C &
D, with A3, B3, C3 & D3 being on the ground. Six convicted Tamil prisoners
including Kuttimani, Thangathurai and Jegan of the TELO, detained and convicted
after the Neervely bank robbery of 1981 and who had appealed against death sentences,
were in the front section of B3. B3 had a wooden partition and the rear section
had also gallows. These 6 were each kept in one cell. D3 had 29 Tamil prisoners
detained under the PTA and C3 had 28. Nine others were in the Youthful Offenders
Building (YOB). They were Dr. Tharmalingam, Kovai Mahesen, Dr. Rajasundaram,
A. David, Mr. Nithiananthan, Fr. Singarayar, Fr. Sinnarasa, Rev. Jeyatilekarajah
and Dr. Jeyakularajah. According to Mr. C.T. Jansz, then Deputy Commissioner
of Prisons, those in D3 were mostly young boys taken in on suspicion and were
due to be released soon. Mr. Delgoda, Commissioner of Prisons, was then abroad
for a conference.

A3 housed dangerous
criminals and those who had attempted to escape, and were nearly all Sinhalese.
A prominent figure there was Sepala Ekanayake, convicted after hijacking an
aircraft in 1982.

The two upper
floors, or gallery, of the Chapel Block housed 800  850 ordinary convicted
prisoners. The space on the ground floor between the 4 wings is the lobby, the
entrance to which is through an iron door between B3 and C3. These ordinary
prisoners performed manual work during the day in the industrial section or
elsewhere and their sections and cells were locked up only when they were occupied;
that is during the night and during the lunch hour. We understand that during
lunch they were in practice not locked up. Two guards were always stationed
on each upper floor.

On the ground
floor there was a passage leading into each wing with a row of cells on either
side. The prisoners were locked into their cells with guards holding the keys
stationed in the passage. There were two guards in the passage of B3 and 4 each
in A3, C3 and D3. The iron door to each passage was locked and there was a guard
in the lobby holding the key to each wing. But in practice the prisoners were
not locked into the cells during daytime, but the passage door was locked and
the prisoners were in the corridor with the guards, talking or playing games
like cards. On a normal day there were 4+4+4+2+2 (in the lobby) = 16 guards
on the ground floor. But at the time of the incident on the 25th,
there seem to have been fewer.

On duty outside
the prison gates were men from an army platoon. Their job was formally to prevent
the Tamil PTA detainees from escaping. A precedent was set in the early 60s
when army personnel were similarly posted when suspects in the 1962-attempted
coup were detained.

Two days before
he was murdered, on 23rd July, Kuttimani, a leading member of TELO who had appealed
against his death sentence for murder during the Neervely bank heist, approached
a prison official. He told the official very politely, 'Sir, I have a request
to make.' The official was a little anxious. Kuttimani explained that the
Tamil prisoners are given coconut oil to apply on their head, which does not
agree with them. He requested gingelly oil for the Tamil prisoners, which was
their traditional hair oil. The official knew that everyone was being watched
and no one wished to be seen as being considerate to these Tamil prisoners.
He wondered why someone more appropriate, such as the superintendent, had not
seen to it.

Seeing the official
in a dilemma, Kuttimani said, "Sir, I see that you have a difficulty.
We made our choice. We became liberation fighters of our own accord. It is our
duty to endure any privation, any suffering that fate has placed before us.
I will, sir, not trouble you any further." Kuttimani smiled, saluted
the official and withdrew. That was the last time the official saw him alive.

On the evening
of the 24th, the prisoners heard the commotion in Borella. At 8.00
A.M. on the 25th morning the prisoners on the ground floor were taken
out for an airing. The prisoners condemned to death, received newspapers, and
Kuttimani whispered to some of the prisoners that 13 soldiers had been killed
in Jaffna on the 23rd night. At 10.00 A.M., the prisoners could feel
the tense atmosphere inside and then they were locked into their cells. About
2.15 P.M. the prisoners heard noises from the direction of B3 from blows being
aimed at the door, and from a huge crowd in the lobby. They knew there was danger.
They asked the guard in their wing, and he said nothing. Manikkadasan who was
in C3 climbed up, peeped through the ventilator, and told the others that Tamil
prisoners had been killed and that their corpses were being drawn out into the
grounds.

Those from C3
attribute their survival to the jail guard in their wing whom they described
as a decent man, whose name unfortunately has evaded us. He asked the prisoners
to move back from their cell doors and told them, If they are to get
you, it will have to be over my dead body. He then took the keys to
the cell doors, hid them in the toilet, came back and stood at the barred entrance
to the wing. When some of the attackers turned their attention to his wing,
he stretched out his arms and faced them. The attacking prisoners turned away.
It has been suggested by knowledgeable persons that prisoners as a rule will
never attack a jail guard. As compared with the thousands of prisoners, only
about 50 or so jail guards would be on duty at any time. It is the authority
exercised by the guards that keeps the system going.

We will now move
onto testimonies given at the magistrates inquest into the jail massacre
of 25th July.

Alexis Leo
de Silva, Superintendent, Welikade Prison:

He had never
noticed any hostility between the Tamil prisoners on the ground and the convicted
prisoners upstairs. About 2.15 P.M., after lunch, he heard the blowing of whistles
and the alarm being raised. From his office, he ran off towards the Chapel Section
where the commotion was. Among those who ran along with him were his two ASPs
(Assistant Superintendents), Amarasinghe and Danny Munaweera. The door to the
entrance was open, but was barricaded by prisoners. He used force to get into
the lobby.

He saw 300 to
400 prisoners inside the lobby and heard the banging of cell doors and screams
from B3. About 20 to 25 attackers had entered B3 and were banging on the last
door of B3, where all six prisoners in that wing had been locked up. The guards
tried to push the attacking prisoners out, but without success. He (de Silva)
managed to enter B3, but was pushed out into the lobby. From the lobby he heard
thudding sounds of objects falling on human bodies, with screams.

Leo de Silva
shouted to the guards to bring the mob of prisoners under control and to call
for help from the army personnel at the prison gate. He then saw some of the
prisoners entering D3 followed by thudding noises and screams. He saw some of
the prisoners themselves trying to control the mob, but they were overwhelmed.
This went on for several minutes when he saw army personnel.

He saw Acting
Commissioner of Prisons Christopher Theodore (Cutty) Jansz using physical force.
But none of them, Jansz, the Army nor the prisoners trying to help, was
able to enter the wings. A few minutes later he saw the prisoners moving
to the cells upstairs. Mr. Jansz remained with him in the lobby. From the lobby,
he saw several bodies lying in the corridors of B3 and D3. After some time the
situation was generally under control. Some prisoners were walking about the
lobby. There were no army personnel at that stage.

C.T. Jansz,
Acting Commissioner of Prisons:

His office facing
Baseline Road adjoins the prison entrance to the north. About 2.00 P.M. his
peons came running to him and informed him of a commotion in the prison. Rushing
through the main entrance, he forced his way through the human barrier into
the lobby of the Chapel Section that has space for 300 to 400 persons. He saw
a mixture of prisoners and prison officers. There were prisoners watching from
the gallery above and some had entered the wings. There was general unrest with
prisoners carrying rods and other weapons. Forcing himself in with great difficulty,
he observed Leo de Silva trying to control the mob. The passages leading to
the cells of B3 and D3 were jammed with prisoners, and prisoners with weapons
were trying to assault persons on the ground. Jansz tried using physical force
to prevent the attack, but was helpless.

Jansz observed
army personnel standing in the lobby who appeared to be helpless in
the situation[CDN]. According to [Mag],  They [the
army personnel] were also helpless and could not do anything.

Realising that
nothing could be done, Jansz got into his car, and went to the Borella
police station to seek assistance. He learnt from the inspectors he met that
they were not in a position to give any immediate help because they lacked manpower.
He then went to Senior DIG Police, Suntheralingam, who lived close to him in
Gregorys Road to see if 'at least he could help him under
the circumstances. "It was clear that he (Suntheralingam)
was helpless at the moment because he was on his way to attend what witness
(Jansz) believed was a Security Council meeting." Suntheralingam undertook
to take all possible steps and also mention
the matter at the Security Council meeting. Jansz went back to the Borella Police
and was told that a police party had gone to the prison. (It is not clear from
the inquest record if Suntheralingam had anything to do with this change of
mind on the part of the Borella Police.) Going back to the prison, Jansz saw
the police party standing outside.

The Police, Jansz
said were reluctant to enter as it (the prison) was guarded by army
personnel.

According to
Lt. Mahinda Hathurusinghe of the 4th Artillery who was in charge
of the platoon guarding the prison, he occupied a billet with 15 other soldiers;
5 soldiers were in a guard room at the prison entrance, 11 in a guard room 200
yards from his billet and there were also soldiers on mobile duty. In the afternoon
of 25th July, he received a message from the soldiers at the main
entrance that  a riot had broken out inside the prison and that the
Commissioner of Prisons had called for army assistance with a view to controlling
the mob. He went into the prison with seven soldiers all of whom forced
themselves into the Chapel Section through the crowd that was blocking it. His
next statement contradicted what both Leo de Silva said and Jansz had said.
According to Lt. Hathurusinghe:

"The
crowd upon seeing us dropped their weapons and started running upstairs."

According to
de Silva and Jansz however the soldiers appeared to be helpless in
controlling the mob.

What is clear
is that the soldiers came armed and did nothing. According to a survivor interviewed
by SW, the soldiers had SLRs (Self Loading Rifles). Jansz recently confirmed
to us that this had been the case, but suggested that the officer who later
had told him that what transpired was a dirty thing to do, may have
been helpless. They had not fired a single shot.

Moreover from
Janszs own testimony, he left the melee, got into his car and went to
the Borella Police, to DIG Suntheralingam and back to the Borella Police, and
then to Welikade Prison, only because the Army and prison staff were not being
at all helpful. He was desperately trying to find someone to help
him, as though it were not their duty. Even a senior Tamil DIG appeared
to be helpless. When he got back to the prison, a police party had
come, but the Army refused to let them in. SW points out that the Army had no
right to do this because the Prisons Ordinance stipulates that the Prisons
ought to call in the Police when there is sign of trouble.

From this point
the testimonies in the Magistrates inquest record become so muddled up
that the reader is bound to pass them over thinking that the main drama was
over. SWs painstaking work becomes invaluable in straightening out the
events here and would undoubtedly form an illuminating part of her book.

In Leo de Silvas
testimony, there are some inexplicable gaps. He said that neither he, Jansz,
the Army nor the prisoners trying to help, could between them muster the force
to enter the wings and relieve the Tamil prisoners being attacked. (As for the
prison staff, Jansz told us recently that they were not doing anything
constructive!) From this point Leo de Silva jumped to, After
a few minutes I observed the prisoners moving to the upper section of the building.
Jansz remained with me in the lobby. Considering that Jansz had gone
out, we will see that there is more than one gap here.

His answers to
questions from the Magistrate shed further light. Asked what steps he took to
bring the situation under control, L de S replied, After some time
the situation was under control, some prisoners were walking about the lobby.
I managed to bring the bodies to the lobby. At that stage, I did not observe
army personnel. It appeared to me that all the inmates of B3 and D3 were battered.
Medical officers were summoned IMMEDIATELY (our emphasis). AFTER SOME TIME
(our emphasis), it was apparent to us that all those inmates were dead. The
medical officer pronounced them dead."

Leo de Silvas
answer suggests that no steps were taken to bring the situation under control.
The violence just petered out. The dead and injured were brought out, the prison
doctor and medical staff were summoned immediately. During this process, Jansz
who was not present earlier had arrived, while the Army had left. Note that
it was after some time that all were pronounced dead. This
suggests that for some reason the prison doctor had examined them twice.

According Lt.
Hathurusinghe, "the injured persons were brought and kept in the main
lobby by the prison officers with the help of some prison staff." This
is an admission that he and his armed men were around until the riot
petered out. He covered it up by saying that the crowd dispersed upon seeing
them. Having said that the injured persons appeared to be dead,
Hathurusinghe added, the prison doctor (Dr. Dan Perinpanayagam) had
been sent for and arrangements were being made to send the INJURED PERSONS
TO HOSPITAL (our emphasis). This means that Dr.Perinpanayagam or someone
else found some of the victims to be injured, who could possibly have been saved
by medical care.

Hathurusinghe
in his testimony added immediately following the reference to the injured above:
But it soon became apparent that all were dead. Dr. Perinpanayagam stated
that they were all dead.

Janszs
testimony throws some sinister light on what really happened. Having returned
to the lobby after failing to get help, and the police party prevented by the
Army from entering, he found some bodies heaped up and other bodies being brought
out. Jansz then issued orders for vehicles to CARRY THE INJURED
TO THE ACCIDENT SERVICE of the General Hospital (our emphasis).

He then said,
Having made arrangements to carry the injured to the Accident Service
of the General Hospital I found that the Army personnel were of the view that
we should seek permission from higher authorities to take the injured out of
the prison premises.

Jansz was thus
very clear that some of the prisoners attacked were not dead and needed urgent
medical care. Upon being refused by the Army at the gate, Jansz used the telephone
at the gate to contact the Major in charge of the unit, whose name we have not
been able to find out. He was probably at Panagoda. The Major then informed
him that that the permission for such a removal would have to be granted
by the Secretary to the Ministry of Defence.

We have here
a strange situation. If Jansz had to contact the Major, he had then been prevented
by Lieutenant Hathurusinghe from removing the victims. In army terms, Janszs
rank was something like a major general or senior brigadier, and as acting commissioner
of prisons on several occasions since 1974, he clearly knew his duty. On the
part of the Army it was a perverse interpretation of their task of guarding
the prisoners to prevent those battered from getting medical treatment. The
Lieutenant who would have been taught the Geneva Conventions should have known
that giving medical care to injured enemy does not require reference to the
top. Clearly, he would not have acted alone on such a cruel refusal that would
be on record.

We may take it
that Lt. Hathurusinghe upon leaving the lobby of the Chapel Section told his
superiors of the situation and of the injured, as he was bound to, and was instructed
not to allow the injured to be taken out. After all it would have been much
easier and more appropriate for those at Army HQ to get clearance from Secretary/Defence,
than for Jansz.

In a crisis of
this nature, it would have been the duty of field officers to keep the Army
HQ informed. If the Army authorities would not allow Jansz to take the injured
to hospital under prison security, they should have promptly taken them to the
Army Hospital. If they could not or did not want to do that, they had no business
to stop Jansz.

An even greater
irony is that President Jayewardene was then at Army HQ. On the testimony of
Bradman Weerakoon, Jayewardene was in the Army Commanders room when he
was informed of the prison massacre and 'was deeply upset.' Moreover, DIG Suntheralingam
had told Jansz a little earlier that he was going to a Security Council meeting.
Such meetings, it turns out, were then, during the crisis, held in Army HQ.
This means that Secretary/Defence, Colonel Dharmapala, too was almost certainly
there. It is probable that Jayewardene had heard of the massacre before Suntheralingam
raised it at the Security Council, which would have been about when Jansz was
trying to get permission to take the injured out. We have confirmed from a police
official present that the Security Council, when it met that day, was 'very
much aware' of the prison massacre.

A particular
point needs clearing up. Jansz said that he had made the arrangements to take
the injured to the Accident Service. He told us recently that he had gone to
the General Hospital, met the Hospital Director Dr. Lucian Jayasuriya, and made
arrangements to admit the injured. He also admitted that it was such a traumatic
experience, that, after 16 years, his memory has rejected a good deal that was
unpleasant. In the circumstances it would appear that he had gone to Dr. Jayasuriya
after ordering the vehicles to take the injured, and had got back to accompany
them when he was stopped. It gives the picture of a man hopelessly, painstakingly,
and yet passively, begging for help, as it were, battling against a system that
was primed to defeat him at every turn.

Jansz evidently
tried ringing desperately and either did not get through, or was not put through
to those at the top, all of whom were presumably at Army HQ. Jansz did however
get through to DIG Ernest Perera at Police HQ, who would have been his contemporary
in the University of Ceylon, where Jansz earned a degree in Veterinary Science.
Perera suggested that he come over, presumably because he may have better luck
getting through from his office. There were probably reasons why he did not
want to intervene personally, as grave and urgent as the matter was. This would
have saved time and lives.

Jansz went to
Police HQ with Leo de Silva, leaving the two ASPs in charge at Welikade 
Leos two assistants who on his testimony had run out with him to the Chapel
Section. He got through to the Army Commander, Tissa Weeratunge, who had returned
from Jaffna by that afternoon, and told him about the injured prisoners. According
to [CDN], the Commanding Officer told him that he has no objection
to the request and to communicate this to the army personnel at Welikade prison.
But according to [Mag], Jansz requested Weeratunge to communicate his consent
to the army personnel at the prison gate. It is likely that both happened. Janszs
testimony makes all this sound natural, but it is very unnatural. Weeratunge
already knew what had happened through several channels. One would have expected
more concern from him about how men under his command had behaved. But he too,
like Ernest Perera, wanted to keep out of it. We also further learnt that at
the Police HQ Jansz also met IGP Rudra Rajasingham and DIG Suntheralingam just
after their return from the Security Council meeting where the massacre had
been discussed. The Army Commander is thus without excuse.

On getting back,
Jansz and Leo de Silva saw a truck parked in the compound and were
given to understand that 35 bodies in the truck were heaped for removal.
There was no more talk about taking the injured to the Accident Service.
Jansz was no doubt deeply disturbed. He told the inquest, "Dr. Perinpanayagam
had arrived by then. The truck was taken to the passage near the main gate.
The bodies in the truck were removed on stretchers to the room adjoining the
passage. Dr. Perinpanayagam made his observations and I was informed that they
were all dead."

Dr. Perinpanayagam
lived on the premises and did not go anywhere that day. He was summoned after
the violence had abated. This means that he was examining them at the gate after
an hour or more had elapsed, after Jansz and Leo returned. These grave disparities
could have been dismissed as surmise and speculation without much value, arising
from the testimony of confused witnesses, if not for Suriya Wickremasinghes
work in filling the gaps.

SW says in her
notes:  we know from eyewitnesses, and which appears likely
from the inquest evidence, that the bodies were attacked again on the floor
of the lobby to make sure they were dead. They were dragged into the compound
and attacked there. They were thrown into the truck, and according to some eyewitness
accounts, the sound of bodies being attacked even inside the truck could be
heard. Indeed according to one of our witnesses, one young prisoner [Kanapathipillai
Mylvaganam, 19 years, 5 ft 1 in] who had succeeded in hiding, was actually killed
in the compound by a jailor.

On the matter
of Jansz having the bodies taken out on stretchers and examined, SW says: There
would have been no need to do this had Dr. Perinpanayagam already examined them
and declared them dead. If Dr. Perinpanayagam had not done so, nobody had any
business to heap them into a truck. Who permitted this to be done?

Although Janszs
memory is now a little hazy, he did say that the injured had been attacked and
killed. SW's reconstruction puts that in place. That prison staff were involved
in such an attack was told to us by a Tamil detainee in H Ward,
who was told this by Sinhalese prisoners who were outside watching. Jansz also
said that some prison staff were involved in the instigation. Two very faithful
jailors, he said, had used their revolvers and had injured about 5 attackers.
These jailors, he added, could not, for the fear of being attacked, come to
work for some time afterwards.

Indeed, the fact
that the injured prisoners were attacked before being heaped into the truck
of which Jansz had a hazy recollection and which is established in Suriya Wickremasinghe's
investigations and other testimony, is confirmed from a different context.

Although it had
been said at the inquest that the 'medical officers' and the 'prison doctor'
were summoned immediately, we reliably learn that Dr. Perinpanayagam did not
get to the scene until about 5.30 or 6.00 PM. This is also suggested by Jansz
saying, 'Dr. Perinpanayagam had arrived by then.' This was after his return
from Police HQ. There were two doctors in the prison quarters. The other was
Dr. de Alwis. The sounds and reports of violence had made such an impression
that de Alwis thought it dangerous and advised against going. If any medical
officer had seen the injured earlier, it may have been Mr. Somaratne, the male
nurse. As a veterinarian, Jansz too would have been amply competent.

Dr. Perinpanayagam,
a Tamil, arrived after the bodies were loaded into the truck and were about
to be taken out. He had them taken down, and he spent over 3 to 4 hours examining
them, and found them all to be dead. During this examination ASP Danny Munaweera
and some other prison staff were present. It turned out that the bodies of Kuttimani
and Jegan were at the bottom of the pile of the bodies in the truck.

While the examinations
were going on, one of the officers present observed firmly, that some of
those whose bodies were taken out of the truck, had been breathing before being
loaded into it. The implication was that they had died of suffocation. This
was a remarkable revelation from someone who was upset by what had happened.
It was moreover made while a responsible officer, an ASP, was present, who should
have been answerable for why living persons were piled up in this manner.

It is clear that
the ASPs had witnessed something very disturbing and had not been in control
of the situation while even some jailors were setting the lead in attacking
injured prisoners. No doubt, it was from the ASPs that Jansz had learnt of this
attack.

The inquest had
thus failed to ask the questions that were staring in the face, and so failed
to reveal what was most disturbing. For example, neither the Magistrate nor
the two senior lawyers from the Attorney Generals department who were
leading the evidence tried to resolve the glaring discrepancies in the testimony
about the Armys role.

There was something
else very disturbing, which most readers of the inquest proceedings would have
missed, but has been pointed out by Suriya Wickremasinghe. The hierarchy in
the prison service was as follows:

Commissioner of Prisons
- Mr. J.P. Delgoda (on overseas leave)

Deputy Commissioner
- Mr. C.T. Jansz (acting for Commissioner)

HQ Superintendent (all Island)
- Mr. H.G. Dharmadasa (acting for Deputy Commissioner; had just returned
from overseas and had gone home to Nugegoda early on the 25th July,
not present during incident.)

Superintendent of Prisons, Welikade
- Mr. A. Leo de Silva

Two Assistant Superintendents,
Welikade - Mr. Danny Munaweera

Mr. Amarasinghe

Chief Jailor
- Mr. W.M. Karunaratne

Jailors Class I
- Generally if not always university graduates

Jailors Class II
- Similar to Inspector or ASP in Police

Overseers
- Similar to sergeant in the Police

Senior Jail Guards

Jail Guards
- Similar to police constable

There were about 17 jailors then
in Welikade prison. SW observes: No jailor testified at the inquest.
This is a most remarkable omission. We know from our other sources, that there
was always one, usually two, jailors in the Chapel Section. The jailor on duty
in the area concerned would appear to be the person on the spot responsible
for discipline. He should be able to say how the riot started. Instead we are
treated to the evidence of highups [who arrived much later]....and
to lowly jail guards (whose educational level is not high) and who do not play
any sort of supervisory role.

Who
were the jailors in the Chapel Wing? There appears to be a conspiracy
to pretend that jailors just dont exist. The SP (Leo de Silva) describes
in detail the security arrangements, how many jail guards in each wing etc 
but never mentions the presence of a jailor.

As suggested
earlier, it is what happened after the main violence was over, which was also
obscured in the testimony, that is most disturbing. The first part could have
on the surface been passed off as a spontaneous riot: At 2.00 P.M. hundreds
of prisoners had rushed from upstairs and perhaps from outside with wooden poles,
clubs, spikes, improvised knives of the kind kept by prisoners and iron bars
pulled out from the gallery railings, apparently smashed open the wooden doors
with metal frames leading to B3 and D3, either forced open or opened cells using
the keys from the jail guards, and attacked the prisoners.

Indeed there
are awkward questions: How it started is unclear. If prisoners were allowed
to take and store some of these weapons upstairs, then there has been a serious
lapse. Only one lowly jail guard who was locked inside B3 has testified. The
two jail guards in the lobby who were supposed to be holding the keys to the
wings were not called upon to testify, nor were jailors who have an office in
the lobby itself. If they were all absent, as they should not have been, they
should have been called and the reasons for their absence recorded. This is
an inexplicable, if not deliberate, omission on the part of the Magistrate and
the AGs department lawyers leading the evidence. We reliably understand
that Leo de Silva had complained strongly in private, that some of the important
things he had said were left out by the Magistrate.

There are also
serious questions about whether it was a riot at all. A riot implies or entails
defiance of forces of order and a struggle by the latter at restoring order.
A jail guard in B3 testified that he had been locked up in a cell before his
charges were bashed. Leo de Silva had been carried out when he tried to enter
B3. But not one member of the prison staff had complained of any medically confirmable
hurt or injury. Jansz told us something interesting. When he tried to intervene,
he was not bodily resisted. He was surrounded by prisoners at more than arm's
length swinging something in the air, but he was allowed to go out. The prison
staff were, in his words, 'not doing anything constructive'. It was an
ordered or controlled riot - one of a kind not expected from irate criminals
acting by themselves.

It is what happened
after Jansz wanted to take the injured to the Accident Service that vividly
points to complicity from a broad spectrum of the State: The Lieutenant on the
spot prevented the injured from being taken out. He was almost certainly acting
on instructions from Army HQ who certainly knew about it. Jansz was required
to get permission from a member of the Security Council, which was then by all
indications meeting at Army HQ and had been told about it. It looks as though
Jansz was purposely made, or allowed, to run around in circles.

During the absence
of Jansz and Leo de Silva the injured prisoners were attacked by the prison
staff and others under their supervision, by which time the riot had petered
out. At least two jailors have been named in a later EPRLF document. Why did
Leo de Silva's two assistants (ASPs), who were in charge at this time when Leo
was out - who again were not summoned to testify at the inquest - remain passive
then and thereafter? It was as though the powers that be - the country's leaders
- wanted it to happen.

We also received
testimony from a member of the prison staff present that shortly after the riot
had begun at 2.00 P.M., an Air Force helicopter arrived and was stationary over
the prison for 10 to 15 minutes. By contrast it was noted in the last chapter
that helicopter patrols were singularly absent when the City was being attacked
in the morning. A curfew had also come into force at 2.00 P.M.

Two persons had
entered the passage of C3 by breaking the wooden floor upstairs. But by that
time things had petered out and they left peacefully. The convicted criminals
in A3 apparently remained locked up during the riot. The prison staff as well
as the surviving Tamil prisoners failed to identify a single assailant. Fear?

The Magistrate
entered a verdict of homicide, from a 'general state of unrest' among
800 prisoners housed upstairs in the Chapel Section, 'which had ended up
as a riot'. He further concluded that, "None of the prison officers
or the army officers summoned thereafter could have done anything under the
circumstances to prevent the attack. They have [sic] all been completely overpowered."[Top]

The Emergency
Regulations, the latest of which were gazetted a week before the violence, on
the 18th of July, provided for the disposal of bodies without inquest. The circumstances
of the inquest tell us something about the atmosphere. One factor that may have
prompted the inquest is very likely that Jansz's attempts to take the injured
to the Accident Service had resulted in the bodies ending up in the Medico-Legal
Mortuary. It is notable that the Army had been initially obstructing steps which,
whether the victims were dead or injured, would have led to commencing a formal
legal process with the Police having to record statements. Once in the mortuary
it became awkward to dispose of the bodies under ERs without an inquest.

According to
Jansz, it was Mr. Mervyn Wijesinghe, Secretary/Justice, who persuaded the powers
that be that it was best to have an inquest. However, there was much confusion
around. Mr. Keerthi Srilal Wijewardene, a bachelor of age about 41 years, was
then Chief Magistrate, Colombo. As he records, Wijesinghe and Mr. H.G. Dharmadasa,
Acting Deputy Commissioner, Prisons, informed him orally of the prison deaths
and 'requested' him to hold an inquest.

Back in the Medico-Legal
Morgue the 35 bodies had been laid out and policemen and jail guards were talking
confusedly. The JMO, Dr. M.S.L. Salgado, asked the Police for the magistrate's
order to perform the post-mortem examinations. The Police tried to avoid the
issue. Since the Magistrate's telephone was not working then, Salgado went to
his residence in Havelock Town and told him that he wanted such an order. While
Salgado was in a hurry, Mr. Wijewardene seemed oblivious to what was going on
in the world and particularly in the City. He asked Salgado to come in and have
a cup of tea. This Salgado could not refuse. Further to his annoyance, Wijewardene
asked his manservant to make sandwiches.

Wijewardene,
a keen member of the Medico-Legal Society, started chatting about the problems
of the young related to heroin abuse - something completely outside the immediate.
He was in no hurry to face the present. Then Salgado reminded him that he wanted
to go, and asked Wijewardene to accompany him. According to Wijewardene's record:
"Though I informed him that I would accompany him to the JMO's office,
I would not commence inquest proceedings unless and until the Police made an
application seeking such an Inquest."

Subsequently
at the JMO's office, OIC Borella and Mr. Hyde Silva (H.Y. de Silva), Detective
Superintendent, Crimes, came to him with such an application. Then Wijewardene,
still not sure of himself, a state of emergency prevailing, read Gazette Extraordinary
No. 254/3 of 18th July 1983, to satisfy himself that a judicial inquest
could be held under the circumstances. Having satisfied himself, he ordered
the JMO to hold a post-mortem inquiry. But he had not finished with the JMO.
He asked Salgado to accompany him to Welikade Prison. Salgado agreed to this
unusual request. Salgado recalled, "I think he was scared."

This brings us to a startling
absurdity in the law. Emergency Regulation 15A of the Gazette Extraordinary
made by President Jayewardene under the Public Security Ordinance, allows any
gazetted police officer (i.e. not below ASP rank) or any other authorised officer,
with the approval of Secretary, Ministry of Defence, to arrange for taking possession
and disposal of any dead body, without reference to any other legal provision.
It allows an official to decide when murder is not murder, even in such a blatant
instance as the prison massacre. Regarding this massacre the Government was
anticipating, if not already being flooded with, expressions of concern from
abroad. Groups in the US were already active with respect to the detainee Nirmala
Nithiananthan who had her university education in the US. With the bodies already
with the JMO, ER 15A had become a difficult proposition.

Then suddenly
Secretary, Ministry of Justice (as distinct from Defence) popped up and wanted
an inquest held. The Magistrate was naturally puzzled. Then the Police were
waiting for the Magistrate and the Magistrate for the Police. The process of
the law is deprived of its independence and impartiality when the executive
is given the option of deciding when a crime is not a crime. When in an embarrassing
affair the executive forgoes its option of outright suppression and requests
a magistrate to hold an inquest, it comes with an unspoken, but self-evident,
undertone to hush it up legally. Little wonder then that Magistrate Keerthi
Srilal Wijewardene was an unhappy man.

Shortly after
he arrived at the prison about 4.20 P.M. (26th), in came Mervyn Wijesinghe,
Secretary, Justice, with Mr. Tilak Marapone, Deputy Solicitor General, and Mr.
C.R. de Silva, Senior State Counsel, offering their assistance to this
court', as recorded by Wijewardene. It was hardly the kind of assistance to
be rejected. We know how they led the evidence. Why were the counsels who were
representing the victims and survivors not called? An Amnesty International
statement a few days after the massacres in September '83 stated: The
lawyers of the Tamil detainees are reported to have claimed that they were not
allowed to bring evidence at the inquest proceedings which they allege would
have implied participation of some prison staff. We have had no independent
confirmation of this so far. A lawyer who checked recently with C.R. de Silva,
was told that if a lawyer representing the victims had applied to the AG, he
would almost certainly have been allowed, but if he had simply come to the prison
gate, he may have been turned off on grounds of security. It would have been
a brave lawyer who would have tried under those condtions.

An incident during
the inquest, which began in the evening and lasted through the night until the
27th morning, is revealing. The AJMO, Dr. Salgados assistant,
a Tamil, Dr. Balachandra, was taking photographs of the bodies during the post-mortem
examinations as was normal. There was alarm among the minor staff that a Tamil
was taking photographs for use as propaganda. A jail guard came in alarm and
informed DSG Tilak Marapone about it. Marapone telephoned Dr. Salgado from the
prison to find out what was going on. Salgado assured him that the camera and
film were his, and, it was he who had asked Balachandra to photograph the bodies.
The proper thing was for Marapone to have informed the Presiding Magistrate
if he thought something objectionable was going on. Such overbearing conduct
by the Attorney Generals department men to the cost of the judiciary is
now endemic to our system.

Again, everyone
knew that the Tamil survivors were in no position to testify. Putting together
what different survivors  all those in C3  had seen, it was clear
to them that some influential jailors were involved. One prisoner, Kandiah Rajendran
(alias Robert), who was in a cell nearest to the passage entrance had witnessed
what was going on in the lobby and had given a running commentary. He was killed
in the second massacre. The accounts gathered by Suriya Wickremasinghe are largely
based on Rajendrans running commentary.

The survivors
knew that Leo de Silva and Jansz had no part in what had happened, but also
had no illusions about their ability to protect them. It is interesting that
these survivors in C3 decided to seek an interview with Leo de Silva and ask
him to unlock the cells and let them stay together in the passage. They had
rightly discerned that they were more vulnerable locked up in ones and threes
 a fact made clear in the second act of the drama. This request, if made,
was not granted. That same night (25th), the Sinhalese radio news
which spoke about the massacre was heard clearly by the C3 detainees from the
jailors room nearby. They thought it was deliberate. No one testified
at the inquest giving any names. The Magistrate observed, None of those
prisoners who could be eye witnesses... have volunteered to give evidence...

At 3.00 P.M. in the afternoon
of the 26th, Panagoda Mahesweran, Paranthan Rajan and Douglas Devananda
went as representatives to meet Leo de Silva. At 1.00 A.M. on the 27th,
the 28 detainees were woken up and taken to the Youthful Offenders Building
(See diagram).These detainees were housed in 9 of the 10 cells on the ground
floor, 3 each in 8 cells and 4 in one cell. The 9 detainees, i.e. the professionals
(Dr. Tharmalingam, Dr. Rajasunderam et. al.), who were in those cells were sent
to the dormitory upstairs. This was done before the inquest was concluded.

With all the
35 post-mortem reports in, the inquest proceedings were concluded by Magistrate
Wijewardene in the early hours of the 27th morning. He issued a formal
order to the Borella Police to pursue investigations and produce any suspects
before him. Then came more anomalies in the Law. The Magistrate conducting the
inquest should normally have handed over the bodies to the next of kin. That
had become awkward or difficult. At this point, Detective Superintendent Hyde
Silva applied for possession of the bodies for disposal, under section 15A of
the Gazette Extraordinary of 18th July 1983. Deputy Solicitor General
Mr. Marapone, presumably representing the Attorney General, stated that he had
no objection to the request. Magistrate Wijewardene perused the Gazette and
agreed that it should be allowed in law. The relevant section however reserves
such authorisation for Secretary, Defence, and not the Attorney General! How
laws change according to need! When it came to taking badly injured prisoners
to hospital, it was prevented by dubiously bringing clearance from Secretary,
Defence.

Shortly before
dawn, the bodies were taken in a prison truck wrapped in white sheets to the
Kanatte Cemetery, where a huge pit had been dug. The bodies were thrown onto
the ground by the prisoners assisting the authorities. There was dead silence,
in sharp contrast to the two tumultuous days that preceded it. Not a soul was
about. Dr. Salgado, driving home after a tiring night of post-mortems, stopped
by to have a final look at those whose remains had passed through his hands.
A police inspector asked an army officer and soldiers who were standing by to
help them by fetching more logs. A highly offended army officer protested that
they were there only to give them security. The funny part was lost amidst tempers
being frayed. In the circumstances, it was as though the army officer was referring
to security against ghosts. DSP Hyde Silva quickly stepped in to settle the
quarrel.

The flames from
the pyre leapt up against the glimmering dawn, as the dead were turned to ashes.
However, unknown to the army officer, those above him, and the highest in authority,
the ghosts of these victims were to haunt this land for a generation and more,
denying it any prospect of peace. Dr. Salgado driving home heavy with sleep
was in for another strange encounter. On a lonely road, a policeman stepped
out of the shadows and stopped him for driving on the wrong side! The tribe
that was conspicuously off the streets during the mayhem of the preceding days
seemed not totally out of business.[Top]

C.T. (Cutty)
Jansz and his leading officials had an unenviable problem on their hands. They
could maintain order in the prison only through jailors and jail guards. They
knew that some politically influential jailors were behind the massacre on the
25th. Having transferred the survivors to the YOB, they could only
hope for the best. To whom could they go for help, to the Government?, to the
Army?, the Police?. The events of the 25th had taught them that the
prisoners were in a vicious environment where everything was against them. Had
Jansz been a tougher nut who could arm-twist his jailors, the Army and the Government
by threatening to make things awkward for them, these events may have been avoided,
or at least limited. But there he was, asking if they could at least help
him as though it had nothing to do with them. Even those who perhaps would
like to have helped, sensing what the Government wanted, tried to avoid the
issue.

Senior DIG Suntharalingam
who had been a confident law enforcer six weeks earlier, was apparently helpless
because he was then going to a Security Council meeting! The deterioration of
state culture had gone too far down the road where it had become very difficult
to find someone in authority who would in a crisis tell another, You
jolly well do the right thing or, whatever happens to me, I will tell the world
about it!

The one thing
going in favour of the survivors was the expressions of concern from around
the world. This, the Government had to respond to. Jansz was summoned to the
Security Council meeting at Army HQ, Slave Island, in the afternoon of the 27th.
It turns out from Janszs testimony at the 2nd inquest that
he had on the same morning informed Mervyn Wijesinghe, Secretary, Justice, that
he feared a second attack on the prisoners. Jansz found Jayewardene 'concerned'
about the fate of the surviving Tamil detainees. Jayewardene also had a sympathetic
word of concern for Jansz. He told him, You must be tired after all
that you have been through, and called for Jansz to be served with
a glass of orange juice.

Evidently, there
had been many messages of concern, especially regarding Nirmala Nithiananthan.
Jayewardene accepted that it was not safe for the survivors to be in Colombo.
A council member objected to the suggestion to fly them to Jaffna prison on
the grounds that they would escape. Jayewardene settled the matter by saying
that their safety was the first priority and decided that the survivors should
be flown to Jaffna. (There was later a change in plan and the prisoners were
flown to Batticaloa. This may have resulted from objections raised about possible
escape.) Jansz was asked to liaise with Brigadier Mano Madawela, his school-mate,
regarding the arrangements for the flight. Jayewardene was a "cultured
man" who was decent before the decent. Madawela also agreed to Janszs
request to keep a squad of soldiers always ready, should they be needed to quell
another riot. Barely had Jansz returned to his office when he was told, about
4.15 PM, of a second prison attack. 18 Tamil suspects were killed.

Again Mervyn
Wijesinghe had gone to Magistrate Wijewardenes residence at 7.30 AM on
the 28th and asked him to hold an inquest. Hearings commenced in
the office of the Superintendent of Prisons at 1.30 PM. The evidence was again
led by DSG Tilak Marapone and Senior State Counsel C.R. de Silva, assisted by
ASP Pakeer, CDB. Also present were Mervyn Wijesinghe, Theodore Jansz and Leo
de Silva. The inquest ended just after mid-night, at 12.05 AM on 29th
July. The gaps in the inquests and the grave unanswered questions were even
more glaring than before. Once again, there were jailors on duty at the scene,
who did not testify. Instead those who testified from the staff were Jansz and
the Chief Jailor who came to the scene later, an overseer (similar to police
sergeant), a vocational instructor and three jail guards.

The Chief Jailor,
Mr. W.M. Karunaratne, had testified that through the prison intelligence system
he had learnt of unrest among the prison population, and of a plan for a mass
jail break and an attack on Tamil prisoners and that he had communicated this
to Jansz in the morning. (He referred to PTA detainees as terrorist prisoners,
while Jansz as terrorist suspects and Leo de Silva in the earlier
inquest as suspects under the PTA.) Jansz confirmed in his testimony
that he had been told this by Karunaratne and had verified it through his own
inquiries. He in turn had made representations to the Government through Secretary,
Ministry of Justice, from which followed moves to expedite the transfer of the
prisoners. He had been clear, he said, that the accommodation of the 28 survivors
from C3, Chapel Section, in the YOB, was only a temporary move at the direction
of the Chief Magistrate, and that he had that same day arranged for air force
planes to fly them out.

When reminded
of this recently, Jansz expressed surprise as to why Karunaratne had told him,
while it was to Leo de Silva that he should have reported. A possible answer
appeared in the record of Karunaratne's testimony. He said at the beginning
that the Superintendent of Prisons (Leo), leaving out the Assistant Superintendents
(ASPs), was his immediate superior. Later when describing the attack, he said:
Up to this point to the best of my recollection there were no officers
superior to me in office in the compound. As the most superior office available
".

The leading prison
officials knew that there was a bad situation in prison from the 25th.
On the 26th night, the Magistrate had made an order about the safety
of prisoners and the Secretary, Justice, had made the new Youthful Offenders
Building available for that purpose. It was a time when all the staff who could
be trusted should have been asked to be available on the premises until the
Tamil prisoners were transferred. The Secretary, Justice, should have demanded
that reliable troops be stationed at the prison, or at least have got the Army
Commander to tell the platoon at the prison, which the Commander on his own
should have done after the first experience, that they must act firmly to maintain
order in the event of a disturbance. None of these appears to have been done.

Even more seriously,
curfew had come into force at 4.00 P.M. and Leo de Silva and his two ASPs who
had run to the trouble spot on the 25th, were apparently not available
when trouble broke out sometime between 4.00 and 4.15 P.M. on the 27th.
Even if they had taken turns to rest after breaking rest the previous night,
they should have been about the premises. Leo de Silva was not an irresponsible
man, and those who had worked with him have a high regard for him as a sportsman
and a gentleman. It is also significant that the inquest aided by three competent
legal minds failed to address this glaring issue

One is driven
to suspect that there was something very loose about the place, which the top
officials knew from their first experience. There was a surface of normality,
and the prison routine was going on. But in reality, a section of the staff
with political patronage appear to have taken over. From this vantage point,
what took place at the inquest, with some very tall stories given as testimony,
falls into place.

What follows
is the story one gets from the inquest proceedings. The Overseer Don Alfred
(51) began serving the night meal to the prisoners on the ground floor of the
Chapel Section at 4.00 P.M. By then C3 and D3 were empty. Dinner was first served
to those at the back, behind the wooden partition, who were the ones remaining
in B3. At this time, the door to the lobby entrance was locked, and that key,
along with the keys to the wings, was held in a bunch by Don Alfred. The food
was taken to the entrance of A3, which housed condemned criminals, escapees
and those considered dangerous. A jailor who was supervising was standing by.
The normal procedure, according to Alfred, when serving high security prisoners
on the ground floor, was for him to unlock the passage entrance after the food
was brought, and leave it ajar. Inside, he said, the prisoners were free to
move about in the passage, with the jail guards, for it was mainly during the
night that they were locked up inside their cells. Then the jail guards would
send them out five at a time to get their food, the next five coming out after
the earlier five were inside.

On this occasion,
according to Don Alfred, the inmates of A3 who were earlier looking normal,
rushed out, grabbed him, took his keys, assaulted the jailor, and threw away
the telephone. They then instigated the 800 prisoners upstairs to join them,
opened the lobby gate and rushed out. [The jailor responsible for discipline,
who was supposedly assaulted, did not testify!]

According to
the Vocational Instructor M.E. Thillekeratne (37), some prisoners ran about
25 yards to the wood shed, apparently broke open the cupboards, and helped themselves
to poles, axes and a saw. (The post-mortem reports suggest that they had acquired
some long-bladed sharp instruments.) From the wood shed, they ran about 50 yards
eastwards to the YOB, with a large unarmed crowd following them.

The YOB was in
a compound surrounded by a six-foot high wall, with a gate directly opposite
the main entrance, and a side entrance to the YOB was barricaded with tin sheets.
Don Nicholas (25) was on this occasion the jail guard on duty inside the gate
controlling the entry and exit of persons. He retained on his person the keys
to the main entrance of the YOB, to the passage leading to the cells on the
ground floor, to the cells and to the gate of the dormitory upstairs where the
9 professionals were held. With Don Nicholas were three jail guards in the compound
and the supervising jailor. Two jail guards were locked into the passage with
the cells and one in the lobby for those upstairs. Note that according to Don
Nicholas, unlike in the Chapel Section, the jail guards locked inside did not
have the keys to the cells. But this appears to be strange, as prisoners have
to call the guards locked inside to open their cell to attend to a call of nature.
Does this mean that additional precautions were being taken as though to prevent
these traumatised prisoners from escaping? Escape where?

According to
Nicholas, the armed prisoners came in by jumping over the wall and by breaking
through the barricaded entrance. In all, there were 200300 within the
compound. The prison staff in the compound were overpowered, the keys were taken
from him and the entrance to the YOB was unlocked. The crowd poured in. Others
went upstairs and hammered at the dormitory gate.

As soon as Jansz
had heard of the second outbreak, he telephoned Army HQ, as arranged earlier
with Brigadier Madawela. President Jayewardene, who was with the Army Commander,
asked Major Sunil Peiris, a pioneer commando in the Army, if he could handle
the matter. Major Peiris left promptly in two jeeps with 12 other commandos.
Assuming a 5 minute delay in Jansz phoning Army HQ, a further 5 minutes and
7 minutes to drive the 4 miles, it would have taken Peiris a minimum of 15 to
20 minutes to reach the trouble spot.

As though to
explain the tragedy, the Chief Jailor was at pains to describe the precautions
he took to prevent the jail break. In the morning he had asked the commander
of the army platoon to strengthen the guard outside the prison walls and claims
to have posted armed jail guards at the gate. It may be noted that the purpose
of the army platoon was to guard the Tamil PTA detainees, a half of whom had
already been killed and not the normal prisoners. Although he claimed to have
received information of a plan to attack the Tamil detainees besides an attempted
jail-break, the only precautions he described concerned the latter. This observation
was made in her notes by Suriya Wickremasinghe, through a reading of the Chief
Jailors testimony. His priority, she observed, appears to be  prevent
jail break first, protect life second." This, after the terrible events
of the 25th.

We will now see
what he further said. On hearing the whistle blasts, he rushed out of his office
to the main gate, ordered the sounding of alarm sirens and gongs. He saw 300
 400 prisoners running from the Chapel Section to the YOB, scaling the
wall of the YOB compound and breaking through the barricaded entrance, and he
got the distinct impression that some of them were attempting a mass jail break'!
The wall behind the YOB leads not to the outside, but to the remand section
of the prison compound on the eastern side! He then said, As the most
superior officer available at that time, I took immediate steps to prevent a
mass jail break. He deployed all the officials available 'to various
points, others within boundary walls, some armed
officers positioned outside the boundary wall with arms, made sure
that all exit points were with armed personnel and tried to get other
officers to enter the enclosed compound housing the YOB.

He had done all
this from the main entrance from which he called the army platoon stationed
there by telephone, asking them to come immediately with assistance to quell
the attempted jail break and the riot within the prison.
All this time he seems to have been oblivious to the most urgent threat that
was manifest from what happened on the 25th and what he had seen
going on around the YOB. He had kept on reminding the inquest that being the
senior most person available (4th in the Welikade hierarchy) he had
to take decisions on two conflicting priorities.

He then ran to the YOB, entered
the compound through the broken barricade, and appealed to the crowd to get
back. He heard the crowd inside banging the cell doors, threatening to kill
the Tamils and to axe any officer who came. Then he said, "At that
stage the armed prison officers whom I had stood in readiness for such an eventuality
turned up." (Where were they till then and what were they doing? 
SW.) He ordered them to shoot warning shots into the sky' as he
deemed customary. He then said that he made an announcement asking the crowd
to disperse or face direct firing. This he said he did not have to do as the
army commandos arrived within a minute or two of the warning shots. But the
army platoon stationed at the prison never arrived!

The Chief Jailor
here spoke of armed prison officers turning up at his side, who were not with
him when he ran to the YOB. Earlier he had given the impression that all armed
officers had either been posted outside the prison or at exit points to prevent
a jail break.

As to what was
happening to the Tamil detainees, we quote from a survivors account published
in the Tamil monthly Amuthu of July 1999: In view of the earlier
discussion among ourselves, on the 27th we requested the authorities
to allow us together inside the passage, as was usual during daytime. This was
refused. [Note that Leo de Silva with whom their representatives had spoken
was not questioned at the inquest. Note also that despite the warning from prison
intelligence, even the dangerous prisoners in A3 were by contrast allowed free
in the passage to escape and attack the Tamils, while the latter were locked
up in the cells.]

We prepared
ourselves by storing up gravy and curries to be thrown on the faces of attackers. [Others questioned by SW had also spoken of preparing small weapons
with tins and plates.] In the afternoon we heard a crowd approaching us with
the same kind of banging noises as on the 25th. I put my face to
the cell bars and peeped. I identified the person leading the mob as Sepala
Ekanayake, the plane hijacker. I saw another who came with him having a bunch
of keys. [They had come in by opening the main door and the passage door.]
Our cells did not have locks that had to be opened with a master key such
as in the Parade (Chapel), but had padlocks.

Those
who came into the passage with axes, long jungle knives, pounding poles, rice
ladles and iron bars tried to open our lock. In the excitement, Thurairajah
who was in our cell threw all the curries in one go. As the result, we could
not ward them off from breaking the cell lock for a long time. The three of
us looped the bed sheets around the cell bars and pulled to delay their opening
the door. Once they cut the bed sheet, we held the door with our hands. Our
hands were hammered and we could do no more.

The
attackers who came into our cell rained blows on Thurairajah. I saw him drop
dead with knife cuts. I hammered out at the two assailants in front of me. One
swung an axe at me. Though I parried it with my hand, I received a cut on my
head. Despite the pain I held an assailant in front of me as a shield with one
hand in a vice-like grip and wedged myself into a corner. With my remaining
hand and a leg I hit out at those who tried to get me. While I once kicked out,
a huge blow fell on my leg, and the leg could no longer support me. As soon
as I fell down blows rained on me in quick succession. I stopped resisting and
feigned death.

Suddenly
the blows stopped, and the attackers started running away. Then I saw soldiers
with gas masks moving in. I thought to myself that I should not lose consciousness.
I heard some Tamil voices and movement. I spoke out, I am alive, save
me!". Douglas Devananda came to me, and behind him, Manikkadasan, Alagiri,
Subramaniam and Farook."

While the attack
was going on downstairs, the upstairs dormitory door padlock had been opened
or broken. In the meantime hearing the commotion, most of the nine prisoners
prepared themselves with bits of furniture and the legs of a table. From a letter
written by one of the survivors, Dr. Rajasundaram went to the entrance to talk
with the attackers, appealing to their humanity. Someone took Rajasundaram by
a hand, pulled him out, and he was slain. His companions immediately rushed
to the entrance and using the objects in their hands, prevented the attackers
from coming in. Effectively six of them were involved in this task. Dr. Tharmalingam,
a septuagenarian, stood behind but played a central role in the defence by constantly
encouraging his companions and shouting warnings. The defenders, few in number,
occasionally fell down, either physically exhausted or when a blow found its
mark. But with Dr. Tharmalingam's urging they got up and sprang into the breach.
Tharmalingam told SW in England many years later with considerable amusement,
that the remaining member of their group had removed himself to a side and was
praying.

This experience
demonstrated the point of the survivors from C3, Chapel Section, who wanted
to be allowed together in the passage, where the 28 of them had a fighting chance
of defending one entrance, rather than being picked off in their cells. Among
those upstairs, all survived except for Rajasundaram. The attackers stopped
and ran as the commandos entered.

We now continue
with the testimony of the victim downstairs.

"They (Douglas Devenanda
and ...) carried me out and placed me in the front (visitors) lobby, just inside
the main gate of the building. On the way, I saw the dead body of Dr. Rajasundaram,
and the body of Mariampillai (50) whose head had been crushed. Where I was placed,
I saw Thevakumar next to me unconscious. (He died later in hospital.) The SP
came there and I told him that I was losing blood. He asked me if I could walk
and I impulsively said 'yes'.

"Some
prisoners employed by the authorities in manual work ('loyal' prisoners) who
were carrying the corpses and heard me speaking, talked of taking me to a room
and silencing me for good. Understanding what was said in Sinhalese, I shouted,
"Sir, Sir". An army officer came there and I told him, "They
will kill me here, take me to hospital". Thevakumar and I were taken to
the hospital in a truck.

"At the
Colombo Hospital, the doctor asked for me to be X-rayed. But because of a staff
shortage I was simply left there. People came to look at me out of curiosity.
Some called me a Kotiya (Tiger) and some spat upon me. A nurse came near me.
I held her hand and told her in Sinhalese, "You must save me!" She
came with a bottle of saline, but there was no stand to hold it. I held the
bottle up. Another nurse came and pulled away the bottle and tube. The first
nurse scolded her and reconnected the saline. We were then taken to a women's
ward and a lady doctor stitched me up. We were then taken to a men's ward. Thevakumar
had not regained consciousness and was making an unusual noise. We were chained
to our bed by one of our legs. I later learnt that Thevakumar had died. On the
following day, the Magistrate recorded my testimony.

The name of this witness transpires
as Yogarajah in the inquest report. Suriya Wickremasinghe makes the observation:
"Note how not a single prison officer is able to identify a rioter....
why are they not asked, whether they could perhaps identify some if an identification
parade is held... Similarly, the Tamil survivors were not asked... Particularly
shocking is the question put to Yogarajah by the Magistrate - "Other than
for the fact that they were prisoners were you able to identify any single prisoner
as being one known to you?" Naturally the answer was no..."

We now go back
in time to when the Chief Jailor observed the army commandos coming in. On reaching
Welikade prison, Major Peiris noticed army personnel placed at the outer perimeter
of the prison wall and armed jail guards at exit points. He told the Court,
"I did not notice any prisoners attempting to break out. Therefore I
gathered that the attempted mass jail break had been contained before our arrival!"
Noticing the commotion and warning shots at the YOB, Peiris and his men left
their vehicles and ran there. What follows is an account of the commandos' actions
not in the inquest report.

The first thing
that caught Peiris' eye was Sepala Ekanayake, who faced the officer with an
object in his hand, which horrified the officer. The officer immediately recognised
Ekanayake, who being Sri Lanka's pioneer hijacker, had been built up into something
of a folk hero in the Press. Ekanayake spoke to Peiris confident that the commandos,
who were a part of the Army, were on his side. His words with reference to the
object in his hand were: "Sir, komade vade?"("Sir,
what do you think of this job?"). Peiris, who was rushing towards the
building with gun in one hand, used his other fist to give Ekanayake a blow
on the face. Ekanayake found himself flat on the ground. This happened outside
the boundary of the YOB. Having seen the behaviour of the soldiers on the 25th,
Ekanayake probably thought that this group was also coming to cheer them. We
note that Ekanayake had been the first to enter the YOB. This is meant that
he had done his work there and had come out with something that he was proud
to show off.

The commandos
entered the YOB compound by either jumping over the wall or through the gap
where the fence had been flattened. Peiris found the entrance to the YOB blocked
by a large crowd. The commandos ploughed their way through the crowd firing
into the air. At the entrance, a few prisoners armed with logs resisted the
commandos. When the commandos tried to push them aside with their gun butts,
one prisoner hit out at Peiris with a log. Peiris remembers firing at this man
and saw him being carried away. At least one more prisoner was fired at.

Entering the
YOB, Peiris found the attackers still at it. The commandos put on their tear
gas masks and fired tear gas. As the attackers started dispersing, some commandos
rushed into the passage on the ground floor while Peiris rushed up the staircase.
Going upstairs, Peiris found the 8 survivors in the washroom washing their faces
to relieve the irritation from tear gas.

Major Peiris' encounter
with Ekanayake did not come out at the inquest. Under the prevailing circumstances,
in addition to the manner in which the question was posed, Yogarajah too had
not told the Magistrate about Ekanayake. All members of the prison staff who
testified claimed at both inquests that they could not identify a single attacker.
Surprisingly the question of an identification parade never arose. SW points
out that in the second attack the survivors who were warding off their attackers
saw them at close quarters for several minutes and could have identified them.
When inmates of the Chapel Wing earlier, they had been familiar with those in
A3 who led the attack. It was as though the legal minds guiding the inquest
were determined not to have any names.

Even after the
attackers were pushed out of the YOB, some were still in a militant mood while
some had withdrawn. Those in a militant mood saw the arrival of the commandos
as an aberration and were waiting to have another go. They were shouting each
other's names to check if some had slunk away. Senior prison officers who were
present, still fear to talk about it. One former commissioner admitted seeing
Ekanayake at this stage. 17 of the 28 prisoners downstairs were killed. Only
two of the nine cells with 6 prisoners in all remained unopened. One was killed
upstairs. Whether one Sinhalese attacker was killed by the accidental blows
of his fellows, remains the subject of rumour and speculation. (e.g. Wijitha
Nakkawita , in Sunday Observer 25 July 99.) That such possibilities existed
is suggested by the testimony in which a Tamil prisoner protected himself by
using an attacker as a shield.

Major Peiris
had seen an injured attacker shot by him being carried away. If he had died,
it was not recorded. Had he survived, he had much to tell the inquest. This
has been hushed up.

We now come to
another one of the blatant absurdities of the inquest, where the Chief Jailor
gave a very tall story to explain why the army personnel stationed at the prison
had not come to his assistance, so leaving a huge burden on his shoulders. He
said that just about the time he had telephoned the army platoon for assistance
from the main gate, he saw smoke rising from the administrative block of the
remand section (east of a dividing wall) of the prison. He claimed that he had
been informed (by whom?) that remand prisoners had taken over the administrative
points, having overpowered the officers on duty there. He added, "I
was also informed that some of these prisoners in the remand prison had obtained
possession of fire arms. I am now aware that in view of that situation
some of the army personnel placed outside Welikade Prison had to go to the remand
section to combat that situation. I am also aware that there had been an exchange
of fire between those remand prisoners and the army personnel so that I had
in that situation to make decisions..."

The army officer
in charge at the prison himself was strangely not called upon to testify to
this singular incident. No injuries were recorded, nor spent bullets produced.
We have verified that the incident above is complete fiction. A former commissioner
of prisons confirmed that it is difficult to remove the weapons that are kept
secured and that not one weapon was removed by prisoners. A Tamil prisoner in
'H' ward told us however that in that confusion a smoking rag was thrown into
the Tamil (Temple) Ward, which is situated at the back near the remand section.

SW points out
that the Commissioner of Prisons (Mr. Delgoda) gave another explanation of the
'riot' in the remand section, in his Administration Report of 1983. He said
that the riot in the Remand Prison was caused partly by the prisoners panicking
when tear gas used to quell the Welikade Prison riots wafted into the Remand
Prison.

On the basis
of this explanation, the 'riot' in the remand section took place after the commandos
arrived, and hence cannot provide an alibi for the army platoon at the prison,
that did not lift a finger to protect those under attack. Indeed after the commandos
arrived, it took a long time before the platoon commander, Lieutenant Seneviratne
(initials either N or E), could be found. The Chief Jailor appears to give the
game away with his 'I am now aware [why the local army platoon failed to
come]' - aware a day later at the inquest? Perhaps the AG's department men
leading the evidence who kept Lieutenant Seneviratne out and allowed the Chief
Jailor's tall story to pass, could tell us something about the origins of the
riot in the remand section.

Why the Chief
Jailor who could have defended himself effectively by telling the truth - that
Lieutenant Seneviratne did not come to his assistance - trotted out a ridiculous
story to protect the army personnel and make his whole story implausible, remains
to be explained. Was it that the Lieutenant was acting on orders from above
and the AG's men were asked to cover it up? Why is it that armed jail guards
with advance warning and preparation made no impact on the riot, while a handful
of commandos brought it under control in next to no time? Again, Jansz and the
commandos appear to have given priority to protecting life while the Chief Jailor
to stopping a seemingly fictitious 'mass jail break'.

The Magistrate (Chief Magistrate,
Colombo), entered a verdict of homicide as a result of a riot, in respect of
the death of all 18 prisoners, and directed OIC Borella to conduct further investigations
and report facts to the Magistrate, Colombo and produce suspects if any before
the Chief Magistrate. He observed that none of the witnesses, including the
survivors, are in a position to identify any of the attackers. 'Both the
army personnel and the prison officers', he contended, 'had been hindered
in the full utilisation of their forces to protect the victims of the attack
by the intended mass jailbreak'.

The Magistrate
went to great pains to give flesh to the attempted 'mass scale jail break'.
He said: "However, prompt and efficient steps taken by the special unit
of the Army under witness Major Peiris had effectively prevented the jail break
referred to, and helped quell the mob which might otherwise have caused [even
greater death]." Yet Peiris had very clearly told the inquest, "I
did not notice any prisoners attempting to break out... I initially gathered
that the mass scale jail break had been contained..." Peiris said recently,
"I noticed a few fellows standing around the main entrance. They were
not trying to escape." The Magistrate was thus eager to give Peiris
credit for something, to which he made no claim.

On the subject
of the jailbreak, a salient point was not lost on many of those who said very
early that the two prison attacks had the connivance of the authorities. They
pointed out that on both occasions the attacks took place just after curfew
came into force - at 2.00 P.M. on the 25th and 4.00 P.M. on the 27th.
In the circumstances curfew may not have been an effective deterrent to escape
during anarchy in the prison, but it would have struck planners among the staff
as a precaution.

Jansz, whose
own conduct was arguably creditable under the circumstances, had done himself
a disservice by not placing the whole truth on record. In both inquests, he
had been covering up for his subordinates. He did not for example put it down
on record in the first inquest that most of the staff around him 'were not
doing anything constructive'. He made it easy for the Magistrate and the
AG's men to make the singular omission of not calling up the jailors on duty.
Even their names are not on record. There was after all no call on Jansz as
Commissioner to enter Welikade prison and use 'physical force'. This he did
out of personal concern.

In the second
incident Jansz had put himself in a weak position by trying to cover up for
the apparent non-availability of Leo de Silva, the SP, and the two ASPs. If
they were absent in the normal manner, Leo de Silva would have told Jansz, asking
him to keep an eye on things. The fact that the Chief Jailor told Jansz about
his apprehensions of trouble, and Jansz himself made inquiries, appears to put
Jansz in the position of one who was acting for the Superintendent, Welikade.
Then it would have fallen on Jansz to answer why no effective precautions were
taken, whether for a jail break or for an attack on Tamil PTA detainees. Why
were only the latter locked up in their cells with even the cell keys held by
a guard outside? Why were the others, especially the dangerous criminals in
Chapel A3, not locked up in their cells, thereby enabling them to escape when
food was served? Those upstairs were, it appears, even free to rush down into
the lobby, grab the exit key from the overseer and go out.

If on the other
hand Leo de Silva and his two assistants were unavailable because of intimidation,
physical threat or obstruction, it would have been better for Jansz if he had
said so. It would then have been clear that the prison had been taken over by
some staff with active political connivance. In this case, Jansz would have
been fairly helpless. He would not have got much help from the Police or the
Army and he could only hope that the survivors would be sent out before anything
happened. Jansz after all told us that two decent jailors who used their service
revolvers to fire at the rioters on the 25th could not come to work
for some time. (About five attackers among the prisoners had bullet wounds as
a result, but this too is not on record.)

After the second
massacre, Major Peiris took considerable initiative and waited at the prison,
making arrangements to move the Tamil prisoners out that same night. He also
had Nirmala Nithyananthan brought out from the female ward since her husband,
a survivor from the upper floor of YOB, was among those to be moved.

Another official
who came there and who had known Jansz from their undergraduate days together
at the Medical Faculty, recalled an incident which amused him. An army officer
who had come there and who evidently knew Jansz well remarked, "Cutty
can't say boo to a goose!". The official thought to himself that it
perfectly fitted the Cutty he had known for more than thirty years.

Major Peiris
decided against taking the Tamil survivors to any army camp. He first transported
them to Galle Face Green late in the night and stayed with them. Two buses were
then arranged to take them to Katunayake air base, from where they were dispatched
by air to Batticaloa prison. All, but about three of them, escaped from there
in September 1983 and reached India. Fr. Singarayar wished to stay behind and
face his trial. Dr. Tharmalingam was too old to escape.

At the time of
the massacre, a Tamil militant, J, found guilty of a normal criminal offence,
had been in H Ward, Welikade. His two cellmates were Sinhalese, who promised
to see that nothing happened to him. J was also well known in prison circles
as he was a good volleyball player and took part in games. During the first
massacre most of his Sinhalese mates were out watching the dead and injured
being brought out and many of them expressed disgust. They told him that the
injured prisoners were attacked and killed and were clear that prison staff
were behind it. One jailor too was seen attacking the injured. Among the staff
named by them as being behind the violence were Jailor Rogers Jayasekere (elderly,
tall and on the darker side), and two others including Samitha. Rogers Jayasekere,
an influential man with well-known UNP connections has been widely named by
others.

This will be
taken up in the next chapter. Jailor Samitha, one of those named, was connected
with another incident concerning J. Following the second massacre, Samitha had
done a tour around H Ward later in the evening. Seeing J, he said in surprise,
"Mu thavama inavatha?" ("Is he still here?") When
he went downstairs, J heard him asking other prisoners, "How much has
he seen?" Samitha was then heard saying that nothing could be done
that day (it was past lock-up time), and that they would see about it later.
J spent a very anxious night.

That same night
following the second massacre, Mr. Delgoda, Commissioner of Prisons, returned
from abroad. The following morning, a Sinhalese jail guard gave J a piece of
paper and told him, "It is not safe for you to be here. Many other Tamil
prisoners have been transferred to Batticaloa. You write an appeal and give
it to Mr. Delgoda." Later all the prisoners were called out on parade.
Delgoda addressed them, expressing his shock and condemnation of the massacres.
When that was over, J handed him his appeal. J too was transferred.

The Daily News gave fairly
complete accounts of both inquests. But there were obviously political commissars
deciding the headlines. The report on the first inquest was titled, "Prisoners
Vent their Fury - Killing of Terrorists". (28.7.83). The report on
the second was titled, "Spontaneous Attack on Terrorists" (30.7.89).
In his 'in-depth account' of July 1983 T.D.S.A. Dissanayaka, a man with no
excuse for ignorance of legal norms and basic fair-play, constantly refers to
the PTA detainees as 'terrorists'. Jansz took objection to such references.
He said that most of those killed in the massacres, especially those in Chapel
D3, would soon have been released. Father Singarayar who declined to escape
from Batticaloa prison, was discharged by the High Court. The State appealed
and the Appeal Court hearing reached its final stages in July 1987 - the month
of the Indo-Lanka Accord. Bala Tampoe, who fought the case on his behalf was
confident that the State's charges had been demolished, and that he was on the
verge of acquittal. In August 1987, the state declared a nolle prosequi
and released Fr. Singarayar along with the other detainees being amnestied.[Top]

Many years have
flown since that eventful month of July 1983. But it would be wrong to say that
the dark secrets of Welikade prison lie buried in the sands of time. Their effects
are still with us. Those who lived through it remain haunted by the experience.
Many of the prisoners who survived went on to become militant leaders, who were
dedicated to fighting the State. Some in turn became killers. Mr. and Mrs. Nithyananthan
rejoined the LTTE in India and left in disillusionment the following year. Fr.
Singarayar re-established contact with the LTTE, and died in Jaffna in 1993,
a lonely and broken man. Fr. Sinnarasa who escaped to India in September 1983
distanced himself from the LTTE for several years, but is now in North America
campaigning for the LTTE in a spirit of blind hatred not different from that
which moved the Cyril Mathews of July 1983. Arulanandam David of the Gandhiyam
lives in India, a man of gentle pursuits, dabbling in literary and philosophical
matters. But in his political opinion he is perhaps even more a blind Eelamist,
dreaming of a Tamil Israel, supporting the group which tortured and killed several
of his old friends in the PLOTE. Douglas Devananda now leads the EPDP and once
again narrowly survived after a second prison attack on him at Kalutara. He
was badly mauled by LTTE suspects whom he visited as an MP in 1998.

Chief Jailor
Karunaratne moved on to the Public Service Commission. Rogers Jayasekere who
retired to his home in Kelaniya is still reported as living but deranged in
mind. Jansz became Commissioner and later succeeded Justice Soza as Chairman
of the Human Rights Task Force in 1994. H.G. Dharmadasa became Commissioner
of Prisons and a particular incident is worth recording. Following the LTTE's
Pettah bomb blast in April 1987 there was tension in Welikade Prison. The bomb
blast, which ended the Government's unilateral ceasefire, had killed nearly
120 civilians in Colombo's main bus terminus. Dharmadasa quickly moved the PTA
detainees to the female ward. Upon receiving an alarm about an attempt on the
Tamil detainees, Dharmadasa went and stood against a hole some Sinhalese prisoners
were trying to make, with his hands stretched out. He was bodily carried away,
but the attempt to get at the Tamil prisoners stopped.

He then brought the Tamil prisoners
temporarily to the Prison HQ, and with the consent of the Principal, Mr. Gunasinghe,
housed them in the Nalanda College boarding and later moved them to Boossa.
He was recently on the Disappearance Commission. Those who survived the 1983
jail massacre are quick to acknowledge that there were several decent members
of the prison staff around (e.g. the jail guard in C3 who tried hard to protect
them). They also have a strong word of appreciation for the commando unit under
Major Sunil Peiris. The government of the day chose to blacken the name of the
entire prison service and, to this end, suppress the recording of deeds that
deserved commendation. This was accomplished through holding an inquest calculated
to whitewash its misdeeds and those of its agents.

The Chief Magistrate
Keerthi Srilal Wijewardene must have been a most unhappy man. No good professional
man likes his services being abused in an unprofessional capacity. This is what
the authorities did to him, although he appeared reluctant to undertake the
inquest knowing what was expected. He went onto become district judge in his
native place, Badulla, and became the first Director for Human Rights at the
Commission for the Elimination of Discrimination and the Monitoring of Fundamental
Rights, of which H.W. Jayewardene, the president's brother, was chairman. Although
Wijewardene's career prospects were looking bright, he died on 13th February
1988,a young man aged 46, as fate would have it.

The two inquest
reports convey a poor impression of his merits as a magistrate. However his
scholarly attainments marked him out for a bright career as could be seen from
the report in the Sun (15.2.88): "A brilliant student of St.
Thomas' College, Mt Lavinia, where he won several prizes including the Pieris-Siriwardene
Memorial, the Warden Buck Memorial and the Arndt Memorial. Mr. Wijewardene also
won a string of prizes at the Ceylon Law College, coming first in the final
year examination. He was also president of the Alumni Association for the UN,
Far East and Asia Institute for the Prevention of Crime and Treatment of Offenders."
He was another victim of the state culture. Those who knew him at school
thought him a fair-minded man, though perhaps not a strong man. Marapone was
then his contemporary.

Tilak Marapone
went on to become Attorney General, a post which he resigned when the UNP lost
power in 1994. C.R. de Silva was recently Deputy Solicitor General is charge
of criminal matters, the same post which Marapone had held in July 1983. He
is now Solicitor General.

It is clear that
the hand of the State was laid very heavily to cover up wrongdoing and to protect
prison officials and the Army. But there remains the question of whether these
massacres were planned in advance or whether they arose as a spontaneous response
to what was going on outside - those in the prison as it were doing their bit
for the 'Sinhalese Race'? It would thus seem that the answer to the question,
whether spontaneous or pre-planned, would be relevant for establishing a correspondence
between events both inside and outside the prison. During a further conversation
about the prison massacres, Jansz was in an easier frame of mind. He remarked
quite uncharacteristically, "On looking back it was all well-planned!".

The court actions
of the families assisted by the CRM dragged on for about 5 years. Both sides
listed Jansz and Leo de Silva, who had by then retired, as witnesses. Both declined
to go for any consultations with either side. Eventually the cases were settled
with the State making ex-gratia payments to the families without accepting responsibility.[Top]